Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday April 04, 2013 @09:30AM
from the dogma-meets-karma dept.

twoheadedboy writes "Members of the legal team responsible for prosecution of Aaron Swartz have claimed they received threatening letters and emails, and some had their social network accounts hacked, following the suicide of the Internet freedom activist. Following Swartz's death, his family and friends widely lambasted the prosecution team, who were accused of being heavy-handed in their pursuit of the 26-year-old. He was facing trial for alleged copyright infringement, accused of downloading excessive amounts of material from the academic article resource JSTOR. U.S. attorney for Massachusetts Carmen Ortiz, who headed up the prosecution, and another lead prosecutor, Stephen Heymann, have reportedly become the target of 'harassing and threatening messages,' and their personal information, including home address, personal telephone number, and the names of family members and friends, was posted online. Heymann also received a postcard with a picture of his father's head in a guillotine."

She tried to undermine the courts using an insane number of BS claims, trying to force Aaron to accept a guilty plea rather than let the court decide.

THAT'S NOT HER JOB. It's the OPPOSITE of her job.

She made political speeches on the back of this case, to promote her political career. At some point she should have been fired for misconduct, but she wasn't. The threats and anger relate to HER INCOMPETENCE at the job.

Just resign already Carmen, nobody wants you, every prosecution with your name on it, is tainted, because judges will automatically assume you're doing another insane overreach. Do the nice thing, hand in your resignation, you made a mistake, you want to spend more time with your family and FUCK OFF.

97% of all federal court cases end with a plea bargain. Last year the SCOTUS ruled on Missouri v. Frye and Lafler v. Cooper, those bound it up even tighter. Go look them up.

Justice Scalia wrote on them: "the Court today opens a whole new field of constitutionalized criminal procedure: plea-bargaining law. The ordinary
criminal process has become too long, too expensive, and
unpredictable, in no small part as a consequence of an
intricate federal Code of Criminal Procedure imposed on
the States by this Court in pursuit of perfect justice.... The Court now moves to
bring perfection to the alternative in which prosecutors
and defendants have sought relief. Today’s opinions deal
with only two aspects of counsel’s plea-bargaining inadequacy, and leave other aspects (who knows what they
might be?) to be worked out in further constitutional
litigation that will burden the criminal process. And it
would be foolish to think that “constitutional” rules governing counsel’s behavior will not be followed by rules
governing the prosecution’s behavior in the plea
bargaining process that the Court today announces “‘is the
criminal justice system,’” Is it
constitutional, for example, for the prosecution to with
draw a plea offer that has already been accepted? Or to
withdraw an offer before the defense has had adequate
time to consider and accept it? Or to make no plea offer at
all, even though its case is weak—thereby excluding the
defendant from “the criminal justice system”?

He also wrote: The plea-bargaining process is a subject worthy of regulation, since it is the means by which most criminal convictions are obtained. It happens not to be, however, a subject covered by the Sixth Amendment, which is concerned not with the fairness of bargaining but with the
fairness of conviction. The Constitution . . . is not an allpurpose tool for judicial construction of a perfect world;
and when we ignore its text in order to make it that, we
often find ourselves swinging a sledge where a tack hammer is needed.

Jesus said that if someone hits you on the right cheek (the one they'd hit if they backhanded you like an inferior), you should present the other one (the one they'd hit if they punched you with their dominant hand, like one does with someone of their own social station).

If you think the "right" part isn't significant, then perhaps this is advocating extreme nonviolence. But many people see this as actually a call to insist on being treated as an equal [wikipedia.org], even in the context of being assaulted.

I think the key takeaway from this and other abuses we've seen in the past is that no matter how much you try to hide behind the "I was just doing my job" shield, if you commit socially unacceptable acts, the shield won't be effective. That is, government employees should not just think that they can do whatever they want and not face the social consequences of doing so.

This is really frustrating; the continued bad behavior of government employees in the presence of bad laws that allow for prosecutorial

And, of course, I'm told that having a felony on your record has no effect at all on your future prospects... Definitely not the sort of thing that might seriously impair somebody who might want to be able to touch a computer(that isn't a McDonalds POS terminal) in an occupational context ever again.

"Felon" isn't quite the same level of permaban as "Sex Offender"; but the fun doesn't stop when your sentence is up.

For your information (and in this case I don't even mind invoking Godwin), acceptance (not support, mere acceptance) of inhumane, unjust laws is what makes dictatorships possible in the first place. You think everyone in Germany between 1933 and 1945 was a die-hard Nazi, hell bent on eliminating the Jews and all other "Untermenschen"? Trust me, no. It was a rather small minority. But they made the laws. What made it possible was the great majority of people who went "it's the law, what should I do?"

Oh boy, seriously? Unjust laws? Okay, 35 years might be high, but there is a huge difference between penalties being too high for a specific criminal behavior and really unjust laws like enforced segregation or discrimination based on gender, race or orientation.

How do you measure the injustice of an entire life's course torn away with a bogus felony charge? Just because this isn't an issue of gender, race or orientation doesn't mean it isn't about civil rights.

You are either ignorant or intentionally bending the truth. When prosecutors are beefing up charges in order to obtain a plea, they start stacking all charges that may relate to the same crime in order to get you for as much as possible.

The judge simply couldn't impose more than a year in this case, based on the damages involved and the charges the prosecutor actually brought. Swartz was not "facing a fairly significant fraction of 35 years", he was facing about a year at most, and realistically much less t

Prosecutors recommended a six-month sentence in a minimum security prison...if Swartz gave up his right to a trial. These are scumbags that deprive people of their constitutional rights on a regular basis. They would deserve to rot in prison even if Swartz hadn't committed sucicide.

He was offered a choice, and one of those choices was "take this case to trial." He wasn't "deprived of" shit, until he "deprived himself of" living.

He was offered a choice. That choice was to exercise his constitutional rights and face years in prison, or don't exercise his rights and face months in prison. If you can't exercise a right without facing punishment from the government, you don't really have a right at all.

Plea barganing is nothing more than punshment for exercising your rights. It should be abolished entirely.

When you commit a crime, you forfeit some of your rights, upto and including all of your rights (life/death). Determining if you committed a crime or not, is up to the courts to decide. AS was arrested and charged with crimes, and in the middle of the legal process, and was offered a sure thing versus an unsure outcome, the plea bargain.

If he didn't commit to a crime, then he should have gone to trial, and made the prosecution make the case that he broke the law. Otherwise, he should have taken the plea deal. The fact is, he was charged with breaking the law, and most people here are protesting the law he was charged with breaking, not the facts that he did the deed.

This is important distinction, and is being overlooked by too many people. Should AS be charged? Yes, according to the laws he was being charged with breaking, the facts are really not in dispute, not really. The issue is that the laws he was charged with breaking were unfair, and that is also not in dispute.

This is where and why we need Jury Nullification instructions, where the Jury not only judges the facts of the case, but the merits of the law itself. The Jury box is the last defense against unfair laws. Problem is, the state has a definitive interest in not allowing for Jury Nullification instructions.

If you want to help the next person charged with an unfair law, become an advocate for Jury Nullification. The state doesn't have ultimate power, We the People do, we need to learn to exercise it .

Unless they are coerced into admitting guilt. A guilty plea made under duress is not valid, and every plea bargain is made under duress. If someone wishes to freely plead guilty, then of course we should let them. But if they truly wish to plead guilty, the trumped up charges are not necessary at all.

There are no valid use cases for plea bargaining. Every single instance of plea bargaining is an injustice.

And he could have taken it to trial and:1) Perhaps won the case, and spent zero time in jail;2) Perhaps lost, and gotten the 6-month sentence recommended by prosecutors;3) Perhaps lost, and gotten MORE than that time, up to and including 35 years;

That's not justice. If six months is an acceptable punishment, why is 35 years even on the table? Those are pretty big stakes to be gambling on.

Even if you are innocent and know you're innocent, would you gamble on a trial going wrong and you being in prison for the bulk of your life (just for having the audacity to ask for a trial)? The prosecutors were continuously telling him that they has his ass nailed. How does that capricious and malevolent system in any way represent justice?

He downloaded a lot of documents. Documents that were public and not copyrighted in the first place. Public court documents that anyone could download any time from anywhere. Hell, I could have, and I'm not even in the US. He (allegedly) had the intent to spread them using P2P software. Again, where's the crime? Distributing non-copyrighted documents is afaik (ok, IANAL) not a crime either.

The documents were stored on a server that charged you a few cents per page you wanted to see. That's ok, someone who makes something available can ask to be compensated for this service, for his expenses and his running costs, but again, this someone has no right to the documents not being republished because the documents were not "his", they were public.

Swartz' crime, it seems, was to step on someone's toes who has found a neat way to make money with government documents, and that someone had a few "friends" where it matters. That's the crime. There wasn't even any "civil disobedience" in the whole deal. What did he do? He saw public information being "sold", he knew the information doesn't belong to the person selling them, he most likely assumed (as would I, to be honest) that the service only charges this to keep the operation running, so he thought he'd do his country a service actually by making the (public, government!) information information available for free and take the burden of keeping it available off their shoulders. It sure as hell looked like a service the government (or a subsidiary) provides to its citizens and such things are usually not done with the intent for profit, quite the opposite, they tend to cost more than they produce in revenue.

Quite seriously, I fail to see the crime, or even the criminal intent, here.

They still pursued someone for a victimless non-crime. There are far more worthy targets at the banks and Wall Street. I, for one, don't like my tax dollars being wasted in the meaningless pursuit of conviction rates.

Reading the article helps. He was arrested for "downloading excessive material". In other words, he had a legal JSTOR account, he wasn't accessing it illegally, he just downloaded more material than they wanted him to. Really? That's a crime now? Even the civil matter was settled with JSTOR, but prosecutors went ahead and harassed him anyway.

One day in prison means the likely end of a promising technology career, and is one day too much for someone accused of "downloading excessive material".

Just hope that one day you don't get sent to prison for going over your mobile data usage.

Reading the article helps. He was arrested for "downloading excessive material". In other words, he had a legal JSTOR account, he wasn't accessing it illegally, he just downloaded more material than they wanted him to. Really? That's a crime now?

Where were you when we went over this in all its gory detail? Yes, this is Slashdot and everything The Man does is evil, so I get the whole simplification thing. But the real situation was actually a bit complicated. He basically tried to download every article they had, which went beyond the terms of use of the service. His downloads impacted other users of the service at the time by slowing them down because - wait for it - he was trying to download everything and chewing up resources to do it. His plan was to make all these articles available for free when access to them required a paid service. He also hid the computer doing the work in a closet and took actions to hide his face from security cameras when going to the closet to check on his equipment. From a legal standpoint, this can be interpreted to mean he knew his actions were wrong. There's a lot wrong with how the prosecutors handled this, but he was hardly some innocent school boy who got bullied for no reason.

Reading the article helps. He was arrested for "downloading excessive material". In other words, he had a legal JSTOR account, he wasn't accessing it illegally, he just downloaded more material than they wanted him to. Really? That's a crime now?

Where were you when we went over this in all its gory detail? Yes, this is Slashdot and everything The Man does is evil, so I get the whole simplification thing. But the real situation was actually a bit complicated. He basically tried to download every article they had, which went beyond the terms of use of the service. His downloads impacted other users of the service at the time by slowing them down because - wait for it - he was trying to download everything and chewing up resources to do it. His plan was to make all these articles available for free when access to them required a paid service. He also hid the computer doing the work in a closet and took actions to hide his face from security cameras when going to the closet to check on his equipment. From a legal standpoint, this can be interpreted to mean he knew his actions were wrong. There's a lot wrong with how the prosecutors handled this, but he was hardly some innocent school boy who got bullied for no reason.

From a legal standpoint, maybe. But we all know that the law has nothing to do with right or wrong. Hiding your actions doesn't show that you thought you were doing wrong - just that you thought others might object. Often, doing the right thing involves going against other's objections.And even though there can be discussion about whether he did or didn't try to do the right thing, it is a fact that the punishment was excessive and that the case is an object lesson in the evils of plea bargaining. That shou

Reading the article helps. He was arrested for "downloading excessive material". In other words, he had a legal JSTOR account, he wasn't accessing it illegally, he just downloaded more material than they wanted him to. Really? That's a crime now?

Where were you when we went over this in all its gory detail? Yes, this is Slashdot and everything The Man does is evil, so I get the whole simplification thing. But the real situation was actually a bit complicated. He basically tried to download every article they had, which went beyond the terms of use of the service.

Fuck the terms of use. They're not LAW. If a law says they are, well, the terms of use of the license for the copyright on this post say that you have no right to read it in full. You must not read more than half of it. Even if it includes your words, you have no right to read below this line the first time. Or read above this line the second time.___________________________

His downloads impacted other users of the service at the time by slowing them down because - wait for it - he was trying to download everything and chewing up resources to do it.

So what? It's text. Text downloads fast. It's not like he coordinated a DDOS on JSTOR or anything.

His plan was to make all these articles available for free when access to them required a paid service.

Reading the article helps. He was arrested for "downloading excessive material".

That's wrong. He was charged with computer fraud and abuse (CFAA), not "downloading excessive material" (or even copyright violation). Although he was not affiliated with MIT, he connected to its network, evaded attempts to kick him off the network, physically entered a wiring closet on campus to circumvent restrictions on the wireless network, and attempted to conceal a machine there. He tried to hide his face from security ca

Reading the article helps. He was arrested for "downloading excessive material".

That's wrong. He was charged with computer fraud and abuse (CFAA), not "downloading excessive material" (or even copyright violation). Although he was not affiliated with MIT, he connected to its network, evaded attempts to kick him off the network, physically entered a wiring closet on campus to circumvent restrictions on the wireless network, and attempted to conceal a machine there. He tried to hide his face from security cameras, and he did all that even though he would have had access to the network at Harvard. And his charges and penalties were based on the work and disruption he caused to MIT users and staff.

Yes, physically and intentionally hooking up to a network you have no right to be on, on someone else's private property that you have no right to be on, is a crime, with the severity of the sentence determined by how much damage you cause.

This has been my main issue with Aaron Swartz for some time. He has correctly identified things that are wrong, but he has always taken the wrong approach to fixing the problem. The fact that the results of taxpayer-funded research is behind a paywall is wrong. It should be open and accessible. But the proper way to fix that is to get the government to pay the costs. The government doles out billions of dollars for the research to occur but cannot see fit to add a few thousand dollars to each grant spe

He has correctly identified things that are wrong, but he has always taken the wrong approach to fixing the problem. The fact that the results of taxpayer-funded research is behind a paywall is wrong. It should be open and accessible.

I completely agree. I strongly sympathize with his cause, but he just screwed up on the activism itself and wasn't prepared to deal with the obvious and likely legal consequences of his actions.

The prosecution still has the files for the prosecution under a gag order. They are asking to extend this gag order and are using the excuse that their safety could be harmed if a judge lifted it. In reality, all they are trying to do is cover up their misconduct.

Activism is useless when it is aimed at unproductive channels. Instead, they should have signed the petition to remove the DA in question. Or written a letter to the state.Petition to remove DA Carmen Ortiz [whitehouse.gov]

Instead, they should have signed the petition to remove the DA in question.

Yeah, that's gonna work...

Maybe instead, we should vote out the republicans and democrats, but I suppose that's too much to ask. Besides, we would probably just end up with the tea party loons, or worse. I think majority rule has run its course. All the ignorance is becoming such a burden.

I would actually put it at significantly more useless. Internet petitions do nothing, they have no impact, they will not represent a negative consequence for the party they are aimed at hurting. Harassment, while not a very good tool, and a tool with its own problems, at least has a personal impact on the person being targeted, one that both they and others in similar roles can see and factor in to future decision making.

I can. Not for the harassment, or the "hacking" of their social network pages. That's an almost inevitable consequence. I feel bad for them because they were doing their job of prosecuting a law that shouldn't exist. Nothing says prosecutors have to agree with the law.

Going even further, they had the discretion to say 'effected parties do not with to prosecute, the case will be dropped'. They were not under a legal obligation to continue prosecution in the first place.

It's called prosecutorial discretion. Nothing requires you to enforce a law. Just the other day the supreme court ripped on Obama for just this issue regarding DOMA:

If he has made a determination that executing the law by enforcing the terms is unconstitutional, I don’t see why he doesn’t have the courage of his convictions and execute not only the statute, but do it consistent with his view of the Constitution, rather than saying, oh, we’ll wait till the Supreme Court tells us we have no choice.

I can. Not for the harassment, or the "hacking" of their social network pages. That's an almost inevitable consequence. I feel bad for them because they were doing their job of prosecuting a law that shouldn't exist. Nothing says prosecutors have to agree with the law.

Ever heard of prosecutorial/judicial discretion? It is part of our legal institutions, and it is what differentiate good prosecutors from Javert-wannabes trying to make their mark.

When a bunch of people think you killed a dude, you're going to get harassed. Look at OJ. Those guys are just like OJ. All "looking for the real killers" out on the golf course. The difference? One is a petty thug, while the other used to play football.:-P

Seriously, though, threats are not the way to accomplish anything here. Rather than online vigilantism, people who have strong feelings about this should be talking to newspapers, senators, congressmen, etc. That way they might actually get something changed, and incidentally make these peoples lives difficult as a happy bonus. Remember, these are the people who (for this purpose) define right and wrong. If you want to go after them, short of full revolution, you have to play by their rules. Otherwise you're just another criminal they can use to justify their tactics.

As a former DOJ employee involved mainly with the BOP (Federal Bureau of Prisons), I witnessed a long history of overaggressiveness on the part of US Attorneys (mainly, the AUSA's- the Assitants)... my experience with the court people was often that the AUSA's were trying to make names for themselves and build up their resumes, in hopes of: 1) becoming full US Attorneys, 2) seeking phat money employment in the private sector, or 3) eventually running for some political office.

The females I interacted with were often the most aggressive and over the top- often utilizing severe bias based on their personal lives to make decisions affecting cases... female USA's with histories of being abused by men often saw no possibility of innocence in ANY male defendant, regardless of any facts. In several instances I witnessed state prosecutors refuse to indict based on lack of evidence and/or the specifics of the defendant (i.e. no criminal history, relatively minor charge at state level), only to have a federal prosecutor (an AUSA) throw federal charges at the defendant based on something loose like "the crime involved phones (i.e. modem)", so therefore it could be considered interstate blah blah and allow federal jurisdiction. The startling statistics I discovered were the following:

over 90% of individuals indicted at the federal level are convicted without trial (i.e. plead guilty)of the remaining approx. 10% who go to trial, 90% LOSE, and are convicted

Do we really believe the federal investigators are so good they really only catch that amount of "bad guys"?

The prosecutors often have NO CLUE whatsoever of technical details of complex issues (i.e. computer related incidents, copyright/piracy, etc). They further confuse things by often presenting information that is outright wrong or confusing to judges or others involved in the process, and often play on the fact the defendants often have no clue of the true law and their rights. At the federal level at least IGNORANCE OF THE LAW IS INDEED A VALID DEFENSE. Several federal laws have been changed over the years to add the specific wording "whoever knowingly", because in some cases obscure laws were being abused to prosecute people who had no valid way of knowing that what they did was illegal (i.e. the law was not some "common sense" thing... like a law saying it is illegal to sow grass seed on Tuesday).

I have no comment on the Aaron Swartz case as I don't know all the facts and it is always a damn shame when someone chooses to resort to suicide, but based on my personal experience with "the system" from the inside, I can say that there is no doubt the prosecutor and others on "that side" did indeed play a major role in pushing this troubled young man towards a terrible fate-- and no matter what they say to the contrary, their overaggressiveness in a case involving copyrights for God's sake was truly uncalled for and ultimately serves no proper purpose for the sake of society.

I am afraid this sort of vigilante action is never actually productive. Already the targets are using this to justify keeping details on this case from public view.

What should be going on is pressuring public officials and the press to demand a review of the actions that led to this tragedy, and changes to laws to prevent this from happening again. Instead these attacks are only likely to be used to institute more draconian laws.

In a certain sort of twisted way this seems appropriate. I mean that there is no accountability for their actions in the harassment of Aaron Swartz. If these prosecutors went well above and beyond the normal course of action to give this guy a hard time they should have some accountability for their actions. If the legal system / government isn't going to hold their own representatives accountable for their actions then maybe it needs to come down to the people holding them accountable directly. Sort of lik

In their minds, they were just "doing their jobs"
They are clearly unrepentant.
Does that justify taking this any further?
Of course not.

Vigilante expressions like this never promote good results.

As I recall, showing remorse can get you a lighter punishment. Maybe they should do that. Or they could agree to quit their jobs in exchange for less harassment, kind of a bargain, if you will.

So vigilante actions might not work. Writing your elected officials doesn't either unless you can afford to include a big campaign contribution. So if both approaches don't improve the situation, why not go with the one that's more gratifying?

Maybe it will result in even harsher laws. The worse, the better, in terms of getting the general public to finally be fed up.

Oh, who am I kidding? I just enjoy seeing them suffer. There. I said it.

I wonder if they are actually suffering. They could be parlaying their "pain" into a reason to avoid people looking into their prosecutorial conduct. The real solution for the aggressiveness of the US Attorneys is to open up the actual documents to a reasoned review of the case and what was being discussed. Assuming it was aggressive and out of scale to the crime actually committed, you can point to actual situations that need to change and advocate a positive political change. Just hacking these guys does little to nothing because they've already done their damage, and I doubt other US Attorneys will do more than just shrug at their colleagues' problems and continue to do the same things they have always done.

Government, specifically law enforcement, tend to threaten people with all sorts of scary crap in order to get people to do things they don't want to do. In Swartz's case, he wasn't doing anything strictly illegal but they wanted to believe he did so badly and the JSTOR people want to believe he did so badly that they were willing to harrass and frighten this guy to the point of suicide. After all, they were threatening his life in the sense that he would no longer have a good one.

So now, there is turn-about and they cry foul.

Why is it acceptable for law enforcement to use threats and fear as a means of getting their jobs done. Isn't it they that went too far? Shouldn't it be "okay, we have evidence of X, let's charge him with X" and be done with it? Why is it "we think he has done Y, but we only have evidence of X which is not specifically illegal. So let's threaten him with Z until he pleas to Y."

Harrassment and intimidation by government should not be allowed. Just do straight business.

No, he was. As has been quite widely discussed here and elsewhere he was accused of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and, from what I've read, he probably was actually "guilty". And, yes, 35 years is the actual punishment. Sure, the prosecutors have discretion in prosecuting crimes, but I continue to be amazed that all of our abuse is heaped upon the prosecutors for trying to enforce a law THAT CONGRESS ACTUALLY PASSED. Don't get me wrong, I think that 35 years (or, really, any punishment at all) for what Swartz did is nuts.And I think that there is an under-appreciated moral dimension to the prosecution decisions that US attorneys make. But then again, do we really want a system where the prosecutors feel free to enforce a law or not based on their own preferences? Isn't this what a legislature is for? Why are we focusing on the prosecutors who tried to enforce it instead of the actual people who passed and have the power to fix the law?

But then again, do we really want a system where the prosecutors feel free to enforce a law or not based on their own preferences? Isn't this what a legislature is for? Why are we focusing on the prosecutors who tried to enforce it instead of the actual people who passed and have the power to fix the law?

No, we do not. But we want a leeway in the justice system - that's why the justice system is separated from the legislature. Geeks (and some lawyers) really do feast when they found a technicality in law and they can say "Haha! I did not technically do it!" but if our justice system worked that way we could just feed the rules to a computer and get rid of all the lawyers, jurys and judges. Of course there has to be checks and balances, and make sure that people are treated equally in the front of the court.

But then again, do we really want a system where the prosecutors feel free to enforce a law or not based on their own preferences?

That's already the case, and it's EXACTLY what created the scenario with Swartz (and countless other victims of our "justice" system). The fact that prosecutors have that kind of leeway is part of what allows insane laws like the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to remain on the books.

Of course, the government loves laws like that, because it lets them really throw the book at people they don't like (or threaten to do so in order to obtain an easy plea bargain). When practically everyone's a criminal and enforcement is selective, they can do whatever the hell they want to anybody.

As we know, there is no privacy anymore. Hence, prosecutors are going to be facing more and more of this sort of thing. You cannot hide. Ask that DA
in Texas. Once prosecutors become aware of this, they might become smart enough to NOT mount silly prosecutions like this - but I doubt it. If you as a
prosecutor think your own bureaucracy can protect you, think again. I'm predicting an increase in violence against prosecutors and law enforcement in
general.

Although this is an unpopular view, my take on it is that if we abandon the legitimate means in our system of recalling these people, we weaken those means and force the debate into an unnecessarily volatile mode.

A functional justice system keeps us from descending to the level of personal vengeance and feuding.

It is very sad to see the Justice system failing here.

No one has officially called these prosecutors out on their failings in any other way so we get this. I don't think harassment of these prosecutors and MIT and JSTOR is the appropriate reaction. Nor do I think it is the appropriate reaction that the prosecutors have not been reprimanded and appropriate taken to keep non-sense like this from happen

Having been the defendant in a situation like adam was in, and having seen the options laid out in front of me by the prosecutor (Pay 25,000$ now and avoid the case all together, or chance spending time in prison and pay $25,000 later) I can say that maybe if these prosecutors didn't believe in what they were doing with the conviction that they exhibit when they're flat out telling you to cough up some cash or you're going to prison, If they did, then maybe, just maybe they wouldn't be waffling about their

We live in a country where the powerless are routinely made scapegoats for the crimes of the powerful, and the powerful are almost never brought to account. Given that, it is no surprise that the citizens are taking matters into their own hands. Expect for it to get worse as long as those preconditions continue.

This is a prime example of how "mob rule" only becomes an issue in civilized societies when the "rule" itself becomes corrupted beyond the point where the people subject to it can stomach it anymore. Anyone here think that this would have happened if some kind of action had been taken to see whether the prosecution went overboard and some kind of examination took place?

The whole REASON for the harassment now happening is simply that there has been no such thing, that this was treated as if it was just norma

I think we all know "someone paid me money to do it so it's not my fault" doesn't actually fly. As individuals we have free will and the responsibility to behave ethically. To unquestioningly execute commands is to give up our humanity.

Throughout history we have frequently rejected "I was following orders" and "I was just doing my job". These mantras do not provide absolution.

I think we all know "someone paid me money to do it so it's not my fault" doesn't actually fly. As individuals we have free will and the responsibility to behave ethically. To unquestioningly execute commands is to give up our humanity.

Throughout history we have frequently rejected "I was following orders" and "I was just doing my job". These mantras do not provide absolution.

Nope. In the US that doesn't fly. You'll go to jail, and the ones who gave the orders will put you there. (See Abu Ghraib)

Actually it did fly for people working in the concentration camps.All of germany was not considered war criminals, actually only a very very few people where. And only very very few people in the entire country offered any resistance at all to the genocide.

That is why we conducted studies like the Milgram experiment, that clearly show that the average person will torture someone to death or commit mass genocide if simply asked to by someone with the appearance of authority.

Ideally, the legal system works best if you have optimal lawyers on both sides. The difference between the legal arguing and reasoning ability of a superstar lawyer and a merely competent lawyer is probably less than the difference between the legal abilities of randomly-selected folks, so the system in practice isn't grievously broken.

The weird part is that for the system to work, a lawyer has to contractually agree to represent a client's interest as well as possible

Given the choice between doing something immoral to follow orders and refusing orders, people follow orders. And given the choice between doing something immoral and losing money, people do the immoral thing. Morals take a back seat, except for really fundamental social norms. (Most people won't rape someone for money, for example.)

Morals take a back seat, whether because of the almighty dollar or because of societal norms or even norms within most environments. There are some exceptions--for example, w

There's this little thing called "Prosecutorial discretion". You may not have heard of it. As it turns out, at least in the US, the prosecutor has fairly broad latitude, within the scope of 'doing their job' to push or not push specific cases. This is arguably a bad thing from a 'rule of laws not of men' perspective; but thems the rules as they stand. In this case, the 'victim' wasn't even asking for prosecution, so their hands' weren't being forced even by 'stakeholder' request or public opinion.

The result, of course, is that they now believe that they are entirely justified.

Bullshit, they always did believe they were justifid. Furthermore, these people have no morals -- look up "innocence project" to see how many men prosecutors knew were innocent but still prosecuted and executed.

Guilty of what amounts to a pretty minor infraction. The notion that a punishment should fit the crime should have been the overwhelming concern of the prosecutors, but they showed themselves to be power-mad maniacs, or at least in one case, a sociopath who couldn't have given the tiniest shit about justice and was trying to pave a way to political career with some sort of "tough on crime" record.

Even if it plays into their mythology, it does change the equation somewhat. Even when power is criminal or juvenile, it is still a consequence people with political ambition will increasingly have to factor in when they take various moves. In a way, no response would have been worse since that sends the message that there are no negative consequences or risks involved in such overreach, only gains. Even if it is just a minor effect, the story will stick around and will be remembered when prosectors are pondering how they want to handle such cases in the future and if the political payoff is enough to offset the impact on their life.

Even if it is just a minor effect, the story will stick around and will be remembered when prosectors are pondering how they want to handle such cases in the future and if the political payoff is enough to offset the impact on their life.

I don't think that's entirely correct I'm afraid. It's been my experience with "Type A" personalities that strong responses from the unwashed masses are not comprehended as consequences. Sure, they understand some of the motivations of the political adversaries, and they can even understand the reactions of the fans of their political adversaries, but when it comes to the mainstream middle, they don't really know how predict what will happen.

Certainly these people recognize in hindsight when they've made a decision with terrible consequences on them personally, but they have a much harder time predicting in advance. Look at the George Allen Macaca Controversy [wikipedia.org] as an example.

Conspiracy? Go out and do a survey, ask around, and I don't mean asking hackers and activists, take Mr. Joe Random Average. When even my dad, an old-school ultra-conservative who makes Reagan look like a hippy, says that things ain't right and that the status quo ain't something to be supported, you know that something's not running right in this society.

You scum-sucking douches hectored someone into killing themselves with hyperinflated charges intended to "send a message" to score political points. MESSAGE RECEIVED. You should never work in law or government again. You probably should be in jail for abuse of power.

I would have no problem if someone PHYSICALLY broke each and every one of your collective kneecaps.

In more civilized times, the elected officials just pushed these types out the door to satisfy the Angry Mob with Pitchforks. The angry mob took care of it and the balance of power appeared restored.

The problem now is that the HIRED and NON-ELECTED officials have more power and job security than the ones we actually elect. Most of the time the EMPLOYEES manipulate the actual elected officials now.

Despite the fact that I don't feel this sort of harassment is actually very helpful, the prosecutors really should just man up and realize that they get no more privacy than anyone else does, so maybe they should understand that there are consequences for being jerks. "Just doing your job" doesn't have to mean that you ditch your ethics and humanity to do it.